Primary packaging refers to the material that first envelops and holds a product. This usually is the smallest unit of distribution or use and is the package in direct contact with the contents. Secondary packaging refers to packaging outside the primary packaging—perhaps used to group primary packages together. Tertiary packaging is used for bulk handling, warehouse storage and transport shipping of the secondary packaging containing the primary packaging. The most common form is a palletized unit load that packs tightly into shipping primary packages.
Secondary packaging specific for bottles and cans is well known, and many improvements to such secondary packaging have been made over the years. Currently, there are essentially two varieties of secondary packaging for bottles and cans: the secondary package that receives the bottles and cans, described as a “basket container” in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,571,941 and 7,913,837, and those described as “planar” or “box-top container” as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,590,776 and 5,845,776. The “basket container” is in wide use, but suffers from structural weakness when individual primary packages are removed. Additionally, such packaging is typically unstable when stacked, which can result in significant breakage and loss of product from the primary packaging when the secondary packaging fails and/or falls. “Planar,” or “box-top containers,” on the other hand, have steadily been gaining acceptance in the beverage industry, but suffer from the same difficulties with respect to stacking, and additionally do not protect the primary packaging from damage due to insults received from sources external to the secondary packaging, such as tertiary packaging or other “box-top containers,” or from primary packaging held within the same secondary package. Furthermore, both the “basket container” and the “box-top container” become increasingly unstable and susceptible to failure as primary packages, in the form of cans or bottles, are removed, until the secondary package tears or otherwise collapses releasing any remaining primary packages. Secondary can packages that have become popular in the past decade hold typically six or twelve cans horizontally in a linear carton stacked two- or three-deep. An end flap is torn open to access one or two cans from the end of the carton. As cans are removed from the open end of the carton, cans stacked within the secondary package force other cans forward, towards the open end, for access and/or removal from the carton. This carton thereby restrains the gravity fed primary containers, and allows for continued storage use once the carton has been opened. Such cartons are typically formed with a handle of sufficient strength that allows the package to be carried even after it has been opened. Unfortunately, after opening these cartons by removing an end flap, the primary packages within must be individually removed and moved, because the carton looses almost all stability and is no longer useful for transport of the primary packages without collapsing and/or releasing the individual primary packages remaining in the carton, regardless of the strength of the handle. Additionally, individual primary packages contained within the carton are exposed and are not protected or separated from one another and cannot be individually dispensed from the carton without further exposing all of the remaining primary packages contained within the carton. Thus, using this secondary can packaging, opening or dropping the secondary package or exposing it to extremes in temperature will distress or eliminate the stability of the condition of the secondary package as well as expose all of the primary package contents to damage.
Each of the foregoing disadvantages are overcome by the dispensing system of this invention. Additionally, the secondary packaging apparatus and dispensing methods of this invention achieve other advantages discussed more fully below.